CSIRO banner image

01 Customers

CSIRO US office image.

CSIRO US is open for business

It was a no-brainer when it came to opening an office in America: not only will access to a larger market feed profits back into our work Down Under, but it will help us reach new markets too. And we're building on a track record of success - from our Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex that acts as a vital communications gateway between deep space crafts and NASA mission teams, to our R&D laboratories in Brisbane and Melbourne, established to collaborate with Seattle's Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company. Find out how we're providing even more opportunities for Australian innovation to shine in the US.

02 Research

ASKAP image.

ASKAP hits the big data highway

Our Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope is ready to rumble. Having shown the telescope’s technical excellence during commissioning, its now beginning its first project: observing large areas of sky home to some 600,000 galaxies. It's aiming to detect and measure neutral hydrogen gas - the basic form of matter in the universe - and is taking lots of data, with its antennas churning out 5.2 terabytes of data per second (about 15 per cent of the internet's current data rate). You might want to take a second to download all of that.

CSIRO VPN image.

Paranoid Android: is your VPN safe?

Millions of Android users are turning to mobile VPN apps to hide their browsing activity, access region-restricted content and ensure their data is secure when using public Wi-Fi networks. But our Data61 team, along with the University of New South Wales and the University of Berkeley, has revealed that many of these apps are not as secure as they make out to be. With more personal information being collected than ever before, people are seeking to secure and anonymise their data. But is your mobile safe?

03 Discoveries

CSIRO graphene image.

04 People

CSIRO drift card image.

Get the drift (card): S.A. couple finds 40 y.o. research relic

Talk about better late than never! With a return address to our Division of Fisheries and Oceanography in Cronulla (which hasn’t been in existence since 1981), drift cards like this one returned by some helpful citizen scientists were used for decades to calculate and model ocean currents around Australia and other parts of the world. While we can only wonder what this particular card's been up to for the past few decades, you can be sure our new ocean mapping technology is a little more precise. Find out if the draft card returners claimed their 30 cent reward.

JOBS

CLEAR FOR TAKE-OFF

Our Autonomous System Group in Brisbane, which develops cutting-edge technologies for field robotics (air, ground, aquatic, etc), is looking for a Research Scientist/Engineer. The Hovermap team is developing the next-generation autonomy and mapping technologies for industrial applications of unmanned aerial vehicles or drones. The team is also working on spinning out a company to commercialise the Hovermap System - a hardware and software package that allows drones to be flown safely, anywhere by anyone thanks to its unique SLAM-based lidar mapping, collision avoidance, non-GPS flight and advanced autonomy capabilities.

Secure this

Our Data61 group is looking for a Research Scientist who has expertise in cyber security, more specifically in the area of automating cyber security, building resilient systems and IoT security. In this research scientist position, you will lead both strategic and industry projects, and undertake novel and world class research. You will undertake research under the guidance of a senior researcher in the Distributed Security Systems Group within the Software and Computation Science Program.

05 Participate

CSIRO diet survey image.

Plate expectations: keep your diet on track

Did you attempt to start a new diet for 2017? Don’t feel guilty if you’re not sticking with it, because according to our latest research you are in the majority. We found that nine out of 10 Australian adults have attempted to lose weight in their lifetime, 50 per cent have made more than six attempts while almost 20 per cent have tried more than 25 times. And despite the desire Australians have to lose weight, our obesity rates remain high.

CSIRO bird image.

A level above: why Australian birds are brainier

Having survived the evolutionary school of hard knocks, Australia's bird populations (think parrots, kookaburras, magpies and cockatoos, among others) all have their own unique abilities. They go fishing, remember people’s faces, mimic other species and play hide-and-seek. They even stay younger for longer than Northern Hemisphere species and can live twice as long. Get behind the beaks of our brainiest birds.

Watch BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards: meet the brightest young minds in science
BHP video image.

We blog about news, the universe, big ships and more.